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Even before reaching the Rialto, you have, on the left, in ascending the Canal, the Palace Dario, in Gothic style; the Palace Venier, which presents itself by an angle, with its ornamentation, its precious marbles and medallions, in the Lombard style; the Fine Arts, a classic façade joined to the old Ecole de la Charité and surmounted by a figure riding upon a lion; the Contarini Palace, in architectural style of Scamozzi; the Rezzonico Palace with three superimposed orders; the triple Giustiniani Palace, in the style of the Middle Ages, in which resides M. Natale Schiavoni, a descendant of the celebrated painter Schiavoni, who possesses a gallery of pictures and a beautiful daughter, the living reproduction of a canvas painted by her ancestor; The Foscari Palace, recognizable by its low door, by its two stories of columnets supporting lancets and trefoils, where in other days were lodged the sovereigns who visited Venice, but now abandoned; the Balbi Palace, from the balcony of which the princes leaned to watch the regattas which took place upon the Grand Canal with so much pomp and splendor, in the palmy days of the Republic; the Pisani Palace, in the German style of the beginning of the fifteenth century; and the Tiepolo Palace, very smart and relatively modern.

But the harm which has been done by Claude and the Poussins is as nothing when compared to the mischief effected by Palladio, Scamozzi, and Sansovino. Claude and the Poussins were weak men, and have had no serious influence on the general mind.

It was accurately copied from one of the sumptuous structures of Scamozzi, or Sansovino, or Palladio, which adorn the Grand Canal of Venice. In the distance rose the domes of St. Mark and the lofty Campanile. Vivian could not fail to be delighted with this beautiful work of art, for such indeed it should be styled.